Philippine bloodbath: Top police suspected
Source: Agencies |
November 26, 2009, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
PHILIPPINE authorities, under intense public pressure to make arrests in the country's worst election massacre, said yesterday they were investigating a member of a powerful clan allied with the government along with four police commanders.
Officials recovered 11 more bodies yesterday - six in a large pit buried alongside three vehicles and five in a mass grave - bringing the death toll in Monday's attack on an election caravan to 57, including 18 journalists.
The military said it would disarm two government civilian militia companies, or about 200 men, in southern Maguindanao Province, which is ruled by the powerful Ampatuan clan.
The militia are meant to act as an auxiliary force to the military and police in fighting rebels and criminals but often serve as a private security force of local warlords.
All firearms, ammunition and uniforms of the militiamen are to be turned over to the army's 6th Infantry Division, armed forces spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Romeo Brawner said.
He said the military had revoked all its permits to carry firearms in Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat, the two provinces now under a state of emergency.
No suspects have been formally named in the killings, which provoked outrage beyond the Philippines.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and media and human rights watchdogs called on Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to swiftly punish the attackers.
In a statement, the United States Embassy in Manila condemned the killings.
Arroyo vowed justice for the victims and declared a national day of mourning.
"This is a supreme act of inhumanity that is a blight on our nation," she said.
"The perpetrators will not escape justice. The law will haunt them until they are caught."
The bodies were found sprawled a few kilometers off the main highway in Maguindanao Province on a remote hilltop, and in three nearby mass graves.
The vehicles - a sedan and two vans - were crushed by a large backhoe that ran over and buried them, crime investigator Jose Garcia said.
The dead included the wife and two sisters of gubernatorial candidate Ismael Mangudadatu and 18 Philippine journalists who were accompanying the caravan.
Officials recovered 11 more bodies yesterday - six in a large pit buried alongside three vehicles and five in a mass grave - bringing the death toll in Monday's attack on an election caravan to 57, including 18 journalists.
The military said it would disarm two government civilian militia companies, or about 200 men, in southern Maguindanao Province, which is ruled by the powerful Ampatuan clan.
The militia are meant to act as an auxiliary force to the military and police in fighting rebels and criminals but often serve as a private security force of local warlords.
All firearms, ammunition and uniforms of the militiamen are to be turned over to the army's 6th Infantry Division, armed forces spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Romeo Brawner said.
He said the military had revoked all its permits to carry firearms in Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat, the two provinces now under a state of emergency.
No suspects have been formally named in the killings, which provoked outrage beyond the Philippines.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and media and human rights watchdogs called on Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to swiftly punish the attackers.
In a statement, the United States Embassy in Manila condemned the killings.
Arroyo vowed justice for the victims and declared a national day of mourning.
"This is a supreme act of inhumanity that is a blight on our nation," she said.
"The perpetrators will not escape justice. The law will haunt them until they are caught."
The bodies were found sprawled a few kilometers off the main highway in Maguindanao Province on a remote hilltop, and in three nearby mass graves.
The vehicles - a sedan and two vans - were crushed by a large backhoe that ran over and buried them, crime investigator Jose Garcia said.
The dead included the wife and two sisters of gubernatorial candidate Ismael Mangudadatu and 18 Philippine journalists who were accompanying the caravan.
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